US Patent Regime Is Absurd

An anonymous reader writes in with an opinion piece in the Economist about the the effects of patent trolling on the US economy. The author argues that the U.S. patent regime is causing the U.S. essentially to harm itself. Things have gotten so bad that paying for protection is par for the course.

They should call it the "Wright-Effect"

[tp1024]

The Wright brothers may have been the first to build airplanes that could be adequately controlled and sure they patented it. However, the Americans were the only nation who didn't have operational airplanes during WWI because the patent protection basically prevented improvements of the flaws in the Wright brother's patent protected design. They ended up buying French airplanes instead.

Re:They should call it the "Wright-Effect"

[Daniel_Staal]

And no current airplanes are direct decedents of the Wright brother's planes. All current planes are derived from competing models that didn't violate the Wright brother's patents.